Monday, October 24, 2011

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS In Color / Allied Artists - 1956

Welcome to a special 'colorized' Monster Monday Halloween Countdown post with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Did you know that Republic Pictures colorized this movie way back in 1988?! And, they also colorized ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE, you get to see Leonard Nimoy with green skin!! The budget for this classic sci-fi thriller was a hefty $417,000!!

This is pretty much a non sequitur, but, BODY SNATCHERS director Don Siegel once said in an interview that Leo Gordon was the scariest man he had ever met, after he worked with him on the set of RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11...

The music is by Carmen Dragon, who had a total of 20 composing credits. The only thing he did after this was an episode of DR. KILDARE. It's doubtful he had anything to do with that music playing on the jukebox in the soundclip...

Letz now bring in our lli' Monster Monday button pusher, the one, the only, Ralphie The Tarantula! Okay then, push the big red 'GO' button located directly behind the soda machine, now, Ralphie! Here's our soundclip for... INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS In Color!

It's always cool when the movie starts at the end! Dr. Miles Bennell has been taken to see the psychiatrist after he was found trying to stop traffic on the freeway. Kevin McCarthy plays Dr. Bennell perfectly, and, that's Richard (The Dick Van Dyke Show) Deacon and Whit (I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN) Bissell as the doctors.

Dr. Bennell starts his story by telling about his coming back from a medical convention and about his fiance, Becky Driscoll, played by the beautiful Dana Wynter. This part at the resturant is in the soundclip...

He goes on to tell them about other disturbing things he started to discover. Like, this mysterious clammy clone of Jack that has no fingerprints!! Jack's played by King Donovan, who was also in SPOOKPROOF, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE MAGNETIC MONSTER, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, RIDERS TO THE STARS and PRIVATE HELL 36.

Carolyn Jones plays Jack's wife, Teddy. Here, she watches as Jack's clone opens it's eyes! Carolyn is Morticia Addams.

The source of the cloned bodies is finally discovered!.. PODS!!

They all watch in horror as...

This half baked body plops out of a pod! You can see it's little caterpillar arms in the bottom photo!!

Miles takes a pitchfork to the clones of Becky and himself!

Then, he torches two more pods he finds that somebloody planted in his car's trunk!

As Miles watches Becky's dad hand out pods to the neighbors, an unfriendly hand is laid on his shoulder.

The clone cops get the call and have to cut their tasty meal short.

Miles ditches his Ford in this used car lot. Wow, good buy on that Mercury!

After that, they spend all their time hiding from the unhuman monsters.

They watch from a 2-story window as the pods are distributed to the locals, spreading the plague throughout the countryside!

Miles and Becky make a break for it only to have half the town join in chasing them down!

They hide under the floor planks in a mine to evade the rabid townspeople.

They hear music playing, so, Miles leaves for a few minutes to see where it's coming from. He finds out that people collecting pods are listening to the radio and so returns to Becky...

Here's the part of the story that blows your mind, after all they had been through, Becky falls asleep!!

Miles makes it to the freeway where the possessed citizens finally break off their chase, hey, no one's going to believe his story anyway.

He hops on the back of a truck and discovers that it's filled with pods!!

They are coming to get you!!!

This is a Mexican lobby card hanging on my wall, here at The Dungeon!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

GHOSTS / Those Beasleys - 1996

Here's a tune by Tabonga's band, he plays rhythm guitar and fretless bass, and, it's called... GHOSTS!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE - Stanley Black - "He Begins Where Dracula Left Off" (1958)

"Blood Of The Vampire" is a weird movie!! It's just not right on a number of levels, but it's not a bad movie! It's just that it's different! Very Creepy!! Creepy and Different, Different and Creepy!

Aw Hell, who cares about all of that, let's get "Big Mama" in here to spin a few platters and get this party rolling; One thousand nine zero zero, Party over, Oops, Out of time, Now we're going to party like it's 1899!

Oops! What a party pooper!!!

Hard to imagine; you're some old bald guy doing pretty good coming on to some young buxom blonde, and out of nowhere old droopy eye shows up and needs you do some job for The Boss!

And then it starts getting strange! The music that complements all the weirdness was composed by the brilliant Stanley Black of "Crawling Eye" and "Flesh And The Fiends" fame, and everything about this film screams Hammer, but it's not a Hammer film, even though it was written by Jimmy Sangster!

Vincent Ball is Dr. John Pierre, some poor bastard who was in the wrong place at the right time and ended up in prison with a new set of friends!

Dr. Pierre was lucky he had some envious credentials, otherwise he would have spent the rest of his pathetic life in that two star dungeon! We pride the fact that for 113 years straight the Dwrayger Dungeon has been given a thirteen star rating by the highly respected hearse and buggie club!

Next stop, "Prison For The Criminal Insane!" Hey, welcome to the amusement park known as Doctor Callistratus's Funny Farm! Wow! Would you look at the size of this place! It's cavernous! I guess they were just planning for the future, with room for expansion when all the newest and latest torture devices come out!

Donald Wolfit is a freakin' weirdo of the highest regard! As a performer he was known for being stubborn and cantankerous, and it comes across very effectively in a character such as the evil Doctor Callistratus! He should have changed his name though, because Wolfit was just too easy to cap on as a kid! We called him Woof It! Woof, Woof!!

Doctor Callistratus's henchman Carl does all the detail work! Check out all those jars of body parts etc, especially the one that has a half a skull with an eye in it! Victor "Square Peg" Maddern is the iconic Carl!

Great Halloween Countdown wallpaper!!!

Here's the deal! Doctor Callistratus is no where near being your run of the mill vampire! He's a bit more sophisticated, and not into all that touchy-feelie stuff, he takes blood from his victims via transfusion!!!

A backward twist on the old 'a vampire has no reflection' routine, Dr. Pierre tries to hide from Carl, but his reflection gives away his position!

Victor Maddern manages to channel Curly and Moe all at the same time!!

One of the undisputed queens of horror, Barbara Shelley has the role as the love interest of Dr. Pierre, Madeleine Duval! I have only one other thing to say about Barbara Shelley, she is also known as The First Leading Lady Of British Horror for her roles in films like "The Camp On Blood Island," "Village Of The Damned," and "Quatermass And The Pit!"

Not only does Doctor Callistratus have some weird makeup, he also has some very strange bodily experiments going on with a whole crew of disenchanted guys who keep claiming that this isn't what they signed up for, or they would, if they could!

If you haven't seen it, you need to, if you have seen it, you need to see it again!

I love the shadows in this shot!! Shout out to cinematographer Monty Berman!!!

I'm a firm believer in karma, and I hope Doctor Callistratus is too, because he's got a whole Helluva lot of it coming, and ain't none of it worth a shit!!!

"Father, I want to kill you, Mother, I want to.......AAaaaaHhhhh!!!! - The Doors of Perception

This poster has been hanging on one of The Dungeon walls for a number of years now! It's always been one of my favourites!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??